


in for a penny, in for a pound.

by thychesters



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, [mortal kombat voice] FINISH HIM., and chills with sully while drinking some wine and hoping they don't all get themselves killed, au where elena comes along to the rossi estate, get rekt by this 'washed up journalist' adler, their run-in with rafe doesn't go all that smoothly and she's not above some verbal jousting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 14:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13078419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thychesters/pseuds/thychesters
Summary: well, cross, not penny. but same difference.The Rossi Estate is meant to be a smooth operation: an in-and-out sort of deal, but toss in a couple Drake brothers and one obsessive multi-millionaire who doesn't know when to stop talking, and Elena has her work cut out for her. At least Sully's there, both for moral support and to ensure she doesn't deck someone named Rafe Adler.an au where elena comes along on this misadventures that compose uncharted 4 and isn't lied to for the bulk of it. as prompted bybeltsquid.





	in for a penny, in for a pound.

**Author's Note:**

> >  
>> 
>> _AU where Elena comes along to the Rossi estate, and while Nate's out monkeying around and doing thiefy nonsense, Elena's distracting Rafe by passive-aggressively dropping references to various business failures of his that she's clearly investigated before the auction._  
> 
> 
>   
>  this turned out to be something much longer than i planned on it being, lmao. there's some 'world-building' going on as well as an attempt to tie her into the adventure, make her inclusion come across as a little more organic than just tossed in for the hell of it. there are a number of lines and actions drawn from the scene itself, with a couple things tweaked for the sake of elena's presence. (new goal: re-write the entirety of u4 but in a way that includes elena in the bulk of it, lmao.)
> 
> if you have any other prompts, feel free to shoot them @thychesters on tumblr! and @beltsquid, thank you for the prompt!

The original plan goes as follows: schmooze their way in, maybe grab a drink, steal, and leave. It isn’t the most eloquent of plans, but meant to suffice—or rather, it was supposed to, but then add not one but  _two_  Drakes into the mix, and of course something (if not everything) is bound to go south.

And her feet are killing her.

If it’s any consolation though, it isn’t often that she gets to play dress-up, let alone deck Nate out in a suit, especially one that fits him well. She isn’t above some casual objectification, especially when it comes to her husband, but that’s neither here nor there.

She casts a glance toward Sully, her quote-unquote date for the evening, and then toward the wall of windows, half-expecting Nate to either go swinging by or crashing through one of them. As it stands, she can hear he and Sam going back and forth in her earpiece and then tries not to grimace too much at the static before they cut out. The glass in her hand warms slowly, too-expensive merlot swirling around before she takes a sip and edges back toward Sully. She’s spent the last ten minutes perusing the room, taking in unfamiliar faces and looking over the list of antiquities being auctioned featuring price ranges the mere thought of which only gives her minor heartburn. (The cheapest thing being auctioned off is enough to pay her student loans for both undergrad and graduate school, their mortgage, and hell, maybe they’ll buy eight horses and a small island while they’re at it.)

“Anything yet?” Elena asks after she’s approached him, thumb running along the lip of her glass and catching the residue lipstick smeared there. Long lasting her ass.

“Not yet, surprisingly.” Sully chews at the end of his cigar, and she wants to ask him how the hell he knows Nadine Ross before she gets back with his scotch, because knowing the circles her boys like to run in, it’s likely not for a good reason. But then what does she know, they haven’t kept much correspondence for the past two years. While that thought leaves a bitter taste in the back of her throat, it’s a topic to address later, because heists don’t make for the best times to have a heart-to-heart. The smirk he gives her falters, the expression in his eyes souring before he schools himself again. “We got company.”

Elena follows his gaze, pivoting on her heel to take in a woman she only recognizes from press releases passed around the office years ago, from various headlines and articles she’s read over years, and the story she was originally slated for before passing it over for what was supposed to be an exposé on Zoran Lazarević. While interesting, hunting down a war criminal and taking him to task caught her eye more so than writing about the exploits of a private military company, she’s sorry to say, Nadine. (Not that she hadn’t done her own digging, of course. She’s never been above satiating her own curiosity, and it had been a long, arduous journey to Tibet.)

“Hello again, Nadine,” Sully says, suave as ever, and she shifts her wine glass to her free hand, wedding band clinking against it. Not for the first time that night she considers how maybe she ought to have taken it off, tucked it into the safe in their hotel room or given it to Sully for safe keeping, but it never feels quite right to remove it. “I have to admit, for a minute there I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Lucky for you, I always tend to circle back around,” she muses, and then offers Elena a toast with what appears to be the mirror image of his drink. “Besides, I think the two of us need to play catch-up in more ways than one.”

Elena smiles at her and can’t help but laugh a little. “I think I could get used to men carrying around trays of wine for me. I won’t argue with that.”

Sully chuckles, twirling his cigar again, and Nadine laughs as she indulges the two of them in idle chit-chat, allowing him to take over with one of his stories. All while Elena pretends to scour the floor for another waiter carrying glasses of wine, not straining to hear one of the brothers pipe up to let them know they haven’t plunged off the cliff face, or listening in on the other people milling about.

“I think you’re making that out to be a bigger deal than it was,” Elena interjects, cutting in on his story with a laugh, an abridged retelling of their adventure off the coast of Panama, omitting a few of the key details. She’s not overly keen on divulging too much, but following Sully’s lead has gotten her this far. “For the record, I’m not the one who got us lost.”

“So you’ve worked with Drake as well?” Nadine’s gaze passes between the two of them with a polite smile, the gears in her head turning. Elena’s jaw works for a brief second, because while a good storyteller knows when to divulge enough to catch someone’s attention, perhaps some things are best left unsaid—especially if they want to make a clean get away.

Elena catches his look out of her peripherals, his head tilting enough that she nods, smiling in a way that only the corner of her mouth rises.

“Unfortunately.”

“I guess that makes three of us.”

Sully turns, and as she is wont to do, Elena finds herself thankful that she’s well-versed in keeping herself composed, especially when it comes to people she doesn’t particularly care for. While she can’t say she knows him personally, she’s never much been a fan of Rafe Adler. He’s had a few business endeavors that caught her eye, and she’s followed a number of his ventures over the last few years as a passing fancy—and they provided something to read on the flight, scrolling through his misadventures and e-mails from her editors while they waited out their layover in London.

Plus, there’s the manner in which Nate brought him up, too, made him out to be an old business partner where the relations had soured. He’d name dropped after dragging Sam home that first morning, caught her in the middle of sorting through laundry because it was her turn that week with  _surprise! he has a brother!_ The reveal had raised some holy hell then, a bit unsettled that he’d never told her about him, somewhat understanding when she learned he’d thought him dead, and angrier still when she realized that Sam had lied to him, that he’d expected the two of them to jump right on board with little reservations. It’d made for an interesting afternoon, checking for flights in-between a rather heated discussion in their bedroom while Elena tried to figure out what to do with the stranger standing in her living room and poking at things.

“Victor Sullivan! How the hell are you?” he asks, reaching a hand out like they’re old friends, and Elena watches the single ice cube in his glass float around as they shake. “How long has it been? Ten years? Twelve?”

“Fifteen,” Sully says, pulling away with his cigar wedged between his teeth. Nadine catches her eye with a minute shrug in her direction, and Elena goes back to sipping her wine while Rafe chuckles. She has a tab open on her tablet of his last failed business venture, and she tries not to smirk too much against the rim of her glass. It’s harder, still, at Sully’s remark about the Adler Corporation being his parents’ business, because she’s found if there’s one thing Raphael Adler despises most, it’s being undercut. But what a day job that is, indeed.

“I knew I recognized you from somewhere,” Rafe says, shifting his attention toward her and gestures with his glass. For a moment she can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not, and she can hear Sam hiss in her ear as Sully’s mouth twitches into a frown. “But where are my manners—Rafe Adler.”

Elena offers him that polite smile she always has, on-screen or off as she shakes his hand. “Elena Fisher.”

“Gotta say, quite the jump from World News, exposing all those lowlives to hanging out with them,” he says as he pulls back, chuckling to himself like they’re all in on the joke. He looks between the two of them, at Nadine, and then back. “What brings someone like you out to a place like this? It can’t be the company.”

She glances over to Sully and smiles with one of those fake laughs she hasn’t used since Nate tried to tell her he could get groceries on his own. “I don’t know, it’s not so bad. Besides, not a bad change of pace. And who says no to Italy?”

Italy, sure, but maybe no so much a blackmarket auction. Her editor’s going to have a conniption if she finds out about this one. Exploring the countryside and waxing poetic about Tuscany is one thing, but talking about armed men guarding stolen artifacts being pawned off to the top one-percent doesn’t go over the same way.

Rafe hums as Nadine moves to stand beside him, her gaze wandering over the room as she does. “Seems like more of a take your father to work day. How’d you end up with this old codger?”

“Watch it,” Sully says into his cigar, enough of a warning in his tone that the skin around Rafe’s mouth tightens a little, and Elena opts to deflect.

“A collector of antiquities now?” she says, and Rafe’s eyes cut back to her and the shift in focus. “Sounds like someone got a little bored running an empire.”

“Everyone needs a little excitement in their lives here and there,” he says, as if the behemoth his parents have left behind in their wake and all it entails doesn’t cut it for him. And perhaps it doesn’t, because he—along with everyone else in this room—has enough money to flaunt and burn without thinking anything of it. “And like you said, no one says no to Italy.”

Close, but his paraphrase makes her remark sound like a veiled threat. “Why even take part in an auction though? You could easily buy out everything on the roster without so much as batting an eye.”

“True,” he says, stance shifting. “But where’s the fun without a little challenge?”

“Selectivity never hurt anyone, I suppose,” she murmurs while Sully nurses his drink and watches the exchange. Nadine watches Rafe, the corner of her lip curled in what she assumes is amusement, or something of the sort. “And given tonight’s crowd… well, let’s just say I don’t exactly see the Gates milling about.”

“This crowd didn’t get rich by playing fair,” he says, and in her opinion he looks a little too pleased when he says it. They have some time to kill before the auction starts, and presumably some more until Nate contacts them to say he’s finally made it to the power room, so Elena decides she’s going to knock him down a peg or two. “Not getting in over your head, are you?”

“No,” she says, flexing her toes in her heel in an attempt to get some feeling back into them. “No, I think I can handle myself just fine, thank you. Hanging out with a bunch of lowlives is a bit par for the course in my line of work.”

“And what is that, exactly? Still going off on noble crusades against failed NATO attempts or reminding everyone of the travesties of the world while they flip between trash reality shows or cooking shows?” He chuckles to himself, and yeah, Elena kind of wants to deck him. “Or did that all kind of come to a screeching halt with a…” He looks over to Nadine like he expects her to weigh in. “What was it, a bombing raid?”

 _Grenade,_  she considers saying, but doesn’t want to give him that satisfaction. The scars left on her naked shoulder feel too exposed, and she remains quiet for a beat, lips drawn into a thin line and a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Oh no, the girl can definitely hold her own,” Sully gets in, gesturing to her with his glass. “She’s got a mean right hook, too.”

Rafe pulls a brief sturgeon face and nods. “Respectable.” He looks from Sully to her. “You should know what you’re getting into.”

Elena spots Sam at the far side of the room, the hand that isn’t holding up his tray adjusting his collar and judging by the way Sully clears his throat, he’s seen him, too. She gives Rafe a smile, and raises her glass to him. She’s going to need a stronger drink.

“I always do,” she tells him. “And I’m not one to start things I don’t intend on finishing. Unlike…what was it, a venture into realty? New developments always have such a nice ring to them until the construction team quits and a project’s been put on the back burner for two years now.”

Rafe’s eyebrows raise. Not enough that she’s really gotten under his skin, but enough that she can tell he wasn’t expecting her response.

“I have to say, I never really expected all those side projects out of a brokerage firm,” she continues, and Sully raises his his cigar back to his mouth, snickering behind his mustache. “But I’d recommend having someone do some proper research before you get too far into those ventures—and I don’t mean opting to liquidate a number of your assets at the first sign of failure. Releasing statements that you plan on extending branches is all fine and well, but those layoffs work wonders for boosting morale and your public image.”

Elena’s not quite done yet, has a whole laundry list of things to say, of various endeavors the Adler Corporation’s tried on for size, the ones that have failed and those that have just barely squeaked by. Their green initiative sounded all fine and dandy until someone did the numbers and it turned out they released more emissions than they’d led on. The green initiative hit a snag after that.

“Gotta give the business some credit where credit is due, though. The Maria Adler Foundation is definitely one of your strong suits.” Her glass is empty, and Elena lowers her hands to clasp them both around it. She catches a flash of Nadine’s teeth and Sam’s soft  _hooo_  in her ear.

Rafe looks a little pissed, to put it mildly. Quick to anger, it clearly doesn’t take much to provoke him, and he snickers lowly, one of those chuckles that conveys his irritation and would put her on edge, had she not developed a thick skin for dealing with peoples’ responses to being told things they didn’t want to hear over the years.

“Well it looks like someone’s certainly done their research,” he says, exposing his teeth while he toasts her. “I’ll drink to that.”

“Like you said,” Elena says, leaning in just a bit with a tone that hedges on conspiratorial. “I should know what I’m getting into.”

Rafe Adler is less venture capitalist and more shark, and later on Elena will liken it to channeling her inner Lara Croft and punching a shark in the nose. She can live with that thought.

 _“I like her,”_ Sam whispers somewhere out of view, her earpiece just barely catching it. She can’t turn to try to spot him without looking too obvious.

 _Shut up_ , the baser part of her wants to hiss, because he’s the reason they’re in this mess in the first place. Sully wasn’t wrong when he said she could hold her own though, and she’s always up for a little verbal jousting. There’s more than plenty of that at home, and not only when it comes to figuring out whose turn it is to tackle the dishes.

The auctioneer captures their attention then, collective gazes turned toward the podium and the woman who smiles in that demure, professional way as she announces the bidding on the inlaid wooden crucifix from the Trott Estate, the whole reason they’re here. Sam passes by with a tray of mostly emptying glasses, offering the smallest of nods he can muster as he takes her glass. Rafe’s eye catches on her ring, and Elena’s breath hitches only so, because maybe she should have slipped it off, but then maybe she shouldn’t worry too much that he has something to chew on now, a brief thought to turn to mull over at night while she hopefully never has to deal with him again outside of news alert from the business section on her tablet.

“Well, I know when three’s company and four’s a crowd,” Sully says, holding out his arm for Elena to take. “We’ll leave you two to have fun.”

“Just hold on, Sully,” Rafe cuts in, voice low as he grabs his arm instead. “How’d you find out about it?”

“It? Now what  _‘it’_  is that, Rafe?” Sully replies, and his expression borders on confused amusement, if that’s even a proper mixture. This isn’t his first rodeo, and Rafe doesn’t say anything for a moment, his own features cold and calculating before Sully starts again: “Elena, I think it’s best if we—”

“—cut the bullshit, old man.” She admits she starts when he interrupts, jabbing at Sully’s chest with his index finger while people look on and his voice raises. If they were looking to get in and out without being noticed, they’ve failed miserably. Hell, they did the moment Nadine Ross recognized Sully. “Now I don’t know how you two scammed your way in here, but if you  _think_  about bidding on Avery’s cross, I can tell you exactly how at least one of you is going to be leaving. In a goddamn body bag—”

“Rafe!” Nadine cuts in, the first words she’s spoken since their exchange, and her free hand lingers over his sleeve without quite touching him. He lets out a breath before pulling away and composing himself, hand brushing over Sully’s sleeve as if the last thirty seconds never transpired, saying they get his point. By nature Elena’s not a violent person, but she’s not above decking Rafe, witnesses or no witnesses. There have been enough death threats and near death experiences to last her a lifetime.

“Lovely seeing you both,” Sully says. “But I believe that’s our cue, and the lady needs a new drink.”

Rafe hums again, nodding to the two of them. “Elena, Sully, I’ll be seeing you around.”

“I sure as hell hope not,” Elena murmurs under her breath once their backs are turned and they’re a few paces away. Just hearing him drop the name  _Sully_  doesn’t sit well with her, unsettles her in a way she can’t quite describe, because he has no right to use that name, it doesn’t belong to him.

Sully rubs his jaw with his free hand, glass and cigar held in his other. His smirk is there, and maybe it’s just here and the heat of the moment, but there’s a trace of pride in his eyes. “Remind me not to piss you off… again.”

“Not a bad idea,” she says, and smiles—a real one, this time, even if there’s a hint of worry because Nate hasn’t contacted them yet, and the Saint Dismas Cross is currently on full display for the entire auction party. Elena reaches over to pluck Sully’s glass out of his hand and downs the rest of it, grimacing at the burn. “God, I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“Better sooner than later.” He takes his glass back, eyeing it with a look she can only describe as forlorn. He sniffs. “Nate?” he hisses, his gaze off over her shoulder as she turns her head and takes in the crowd behind him.

Elena toys with her ring, a nervous habit of hers. Another waiter, not Sam, passes by with a different tray, and swaps out the empty glass in Sully’s had for the merlot she’s really only grabbing to keep her hands occupied. Fidgeting won’t pan out well, and she’s always been a restless person.

 _“Guys? You there?”_ Nate says in their ears, and she lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Sam mutters something that sounds like  _thank Christ._

“Where the hell have you been?” Elena asks into the rim of her new wine glass while Sully takes one of the proffered bid cards.

 _“I made it,”_  he says—or huffs, more like.  _“Had a few close calls, but—”_

 _“Now would be a good time to cut the power, if you’re done screwing around,”_ Sam mutters, and she hears Nate’s indignant  _I wasn’t!_  as she looks over to Sully, twirling his cigar again. The bidding’s about to start, so this is the part where the real thrill of it begins, and Elena readies herself in anticipation. She’ll admit she was missing some of the adventure in her life, too, but this… wasn’t what she was really banking on, despite it being what she married into.

“You ready for this?” Sully says, more to her than to anyone else, and she waits a bit before she nods, once, then twice.

“It’s a good thing I can run in heels,” Elena says, and takes another sip of her wine.


End file.
